I could make this a poll, but there'd be too many choices...

[lovingboth]

The law in (edit!) England & Wales used to be absolutely clear: STI infection during consensual sex was not assault, even when the infection was deliberately concealed from the partner.

But in the past couple of years, there have been three successful prosecutions of men for sexual transmission of HIV. They're going through various retrials and appeals, but the basic question remains:

Should sexual transmission of HIV be a criminal offence?

What about when someone lies about their HIV status in order to get their partner to consent to unprotected sex?

Comments

[mhw.livejournal.com]

Should sexual transmission of HIV be a criminal offence?

Not unless the transmission of any other virus is also a criminal offence.

What about when someone lies about their HIV status in order to get their partner to consent to unprotected sex?

As above - not unless lying about anything else is also a criminal offence.

And, honestly, ceteris paribus anyone who consents to unprotected sex, regardless of who says what, can hardly claim, this far on, not to know what the risks of what they're doing are.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

But if someone says "I've been tested recently, I'm definitely OK - why, no, I don't have the piece of paper on me, but I'll show it to you on our next date" - is that distorting the truth enough to make the sex not genuinely consensual?

[mhw.livejournal.com]

Why would anyone in their right mind believe a bit of paper anyway, given what one can readily manufacture with Photoshop and a decent printer?

When did the advice, which used to be what was suggested, that one should consider one's partners to be positive wrt HIV, herpes and anything else regardless go away?

[zotz]

The existence of that advice probably has little to do with what will fly legally. People have many reasons (some of them very reasonable) to trust other people, and sadly it's the sort of issue courts have to deal with quite regularly in other situations.

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

I can think of at least one group of ppl who are more prone to being conned into 'consenting' to unprotected sex or ppl who don't quite have the maturity to make that informed decision - young ppl under the age of 21. Also especially those who have taken drugs/alcohol of various types (think student party involving 17/18 year olds).